Tropical Fish Forums

ksls · Regulars Joined: 12 Jan 2005 Location: Ontario, Canada

Okay, I am not quite sure if this goes here, but I quess I will find out shortly.

We have two clown knifes and thought it would be easier to keep a stock of 300 feeder goldfish on hand, instead if going to the store every other day. Plus its cheaper by the 100 than by the dozen. Heres the problem, we have them in 3-40G rubbermaid containers. 100 in each. All containers have a sponge filter with an air pump attached. We do weekly 25-50% water changes as well and the water is fairly cold. UNFORTUNATLY, we are losing more than we are feeding.

We thought that perhaps the water wasn't being filtered properly so we purchased a pump and plumbed it into two 40 gallon containers. Both containers had an over flow. Since we live on the lake we had them outside and the over flow just went back into the lake, therefor it was very clean water all the time. The water that was being pumped was first going through a carbon filter. Every morning we would go out to find 2 dozen dead feeders!!!
Are there to many feeders in one tank?
The LFS suggested lots of salt. So we even tried that and still we lost a lot of fish.

We LOVE our clown knives and we even upgraded them to a 150 gallon with an ehiem filter. But, we are frustrated with the amounts of fish that we are losing. ANY suggeations would be great!!!

I'm even thinking of tring to feed them pellets.
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Ksls

jynxy · Regulars Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Location: Scotland

I'm not surprised that their all dying! you have 100 goldfish in a 40 gal container! thats way over crowded and I can't even imagine what that looks like.

f_i_s_h_ · New Members Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Location: UK

100 goldfish in a 40gallon...oh dear.

The minimum recommended tank for a hundred is in the region of 500 gallons if you're using them as feeders (although it'll be hell for them in there).

If you were actually keeping them as pets, I'd recommend 5000 gallons at least.

ksls · Regulars Joined: 12 Jan 2005 Location: Ontario, Canada

500 gallons for 100 small feeder fish???? At the LFS they are in a 100 gallon maybe and they have over 1000 feeders in there. I was talking to a person at a bait and tackle shop who has 100 gallon tubs and he always has 2000 large minnows in there at all time. I thought that as long as you keep the water clean all would be fine.

So, in a 40 gallon container what would be the max. amount of small feeders, with weekly water changes and a sponge filter be?
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Ksls

LittleMousling · Advisors Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Location: WNY, USA

LFSs have central filtration systems. Those feeder fish may appear to be in 100 gallons (for a very, very short period of time, until someone buys them), but they're in a system that holds thousands of gallons, often tens of thousands.

For the length of time you'd need to keep the goldfish in there, much longer than the store will, I doubt you could safely have more than 20 fish, and even then you'd need to do lots of water changes.
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-Molly
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